Gender 101: The ultimate feminist aim: male irrelevance

by Connie Chastain*

Every now and then, in an attempt to understand the feminist mentality (to see if it really is more than mere man-hatred), I surf the net for news stories, blog posts and comment threads that might enlighten me. I may talk big and I'm highly opinionated, but goodness knows, I don't profess to know everything, so it doesn't hurt to check.

Last month, this blog had a flashback to feminist Amanda Marcotte's take on the Duke case. I'm familiar with some of the current crop of feminist leaders -- Wendy Murphy, Jessica Valenti, Kathryn Joyce, among others -- usually because other members have posted about them in discussion groups I frequent.

These are highly visible and audible feminist spokespersons, Murphy, of Duke case fame, Valenti, editor of Feministing, and Joyce, critic of "Christian patriarchy". But I didn't recall having encountered brushes with Amanda Marcotte, so I took off on a Google search.

I managed to slog through the first screen of her blog (pandagon) by shallowly skimming posts -- all warmed-over themes and observations you find in liberal blogs and news sites. As a rightwing extreminst myself, I take exception to her mischaracterization of conservatives urging for fiscal responsibility as a cover for wishing to hurt women (because they hate women. Of course).

I can only scratch my head, wondering if she knows the United States is 14 trillion dollars in debt....

In any case, conservative beliefs such as supporting marriage, statistically the safest place for both women and children, advocating for teaching abstinence as an alternative to sexual activity/STDs/abortion, and most other social/fiscal conservative beliefs simply show no hatred for women, regardless of how critics misstate them.

By contrast, liberal feminist advocacy easily reveals hatred for men. There is not only a desire to hurt them through cultural change, but to change culture so thoroughly that men will ultimately be relegated to irrelevancy. This, of course, will not happen. Any culture without men at the helm will not thrive and might not survive.

When it comes to making over the culture, feminist leaders like Marcotte darken the corner where they are; political feminists in politics and government, academic feminists in colleges and universities, social feminists in a variety of areas, particularly the popular culture, and religious feminists in what passes for churches these days. The whole fabric of our society is what they're cutting up to make their man-less crazy quilt of the future.

There may be a few followers of these leaders who are motivated by genuine concern for women, and who have no animosity for men as a group, but I can't give the benefit of that doubt to opinion-shapers like Marcotte, Valenti, Joyce and others. It permeates their articles, interviews and blog posts.

Vengeance against men occupies them far more than concern for women, and one of the best examples is the change of evidence standard for sexual assault on college campuses, covered extensively on this blog. Anybody who thinks feminists leaders are pushing this out of concern for female rape victims is delusional.

It's not about helping women -- its about creating a net big enough to ensare large groups of men, the innocent along with the guilty (which there aren't that many of, anyway). There couldn't be a better illustration of the feminist indifference (or hostility) to male innocence than the Marcotte-Murphy take on the Duke case.

Yes, I firmly believe feminists efforts, regardless of how single-minded, to reduce men to irrelevancy, are doomed to failure, since any culture that achieves it would not survive. But a lot of innocent people, male and female, can be grievously harmed in that futile pursuit.

*Connie is an FRS contributor. Her personal blog is http://conniechastain.blogspot.com/